Hi All,
I apologize for the length of this question, but I've been unable to find the answer elsewhere, so here goes. 🤓
I'm working to improve our planting workflows and I'm looking for advice on how LandFX for Revit & Civil/AutoCAD can (and can't) help us. I've included ✅ emojis next to items that I believe LandFX is fully capable of delivering, and ❓ next to items that I'm unsure of.
Here's what I'm trying to achieve:
COMPANY LIBRARY ✅
Central library of company-approved plants that can be used in projects.
Currently achievable by maintaining a central LandFX "Template" project.
PROJECT DIRECTORY / PALETTE ❓
This is a 'pretty' deliverable that communicates plant attributes that clients care about (species and cultivar, appearance (via 1 or 2 photos), form, culture, special features, toxicity, wildlife value, bloom color & season, etc) in an attractive format that helps clients determine what plants they'd like to use in their landscape.
The plants in this directory are a subset of the "company library". If we create a plant or update an existing plant for this project, we want to 'push' it to the company library for use on future projects. Nice to have: existing projects that are using those projects would pull the updates, keeping everything in sync.
Our current method is to use InDesign to create this deliverable. It results in but it's a very manual & tedious process and is getting less and less viable as our company library expands. See Fig A.
What I've tried:
1) CAD > Create plants then create schedule: F/X Planting tab > Plant Schedule > check 'Entire Palette' > use the 'Plant Data' button to include attributes like 'Mature Width', 'Mature Height', 'Plant Traits' > check the 'Photo' boxes. Result: A schedule with a lot of the info we want, but enormous in dimensions and low in info density (aka, way too big, too much whitespace...just hard to read). See Fig B.
2) Revit: `Planting F/X tab > Plant Schedule > Properties Palette > Fields > add all 'LAFX' parameters including 'LAFX Plant Photo'.` Result: None of the detailed info available in CAD comes through and the `LAFX Plant Photo` parameter renders as a URL, even if it was a LandFX AWS URL (as opposed to a Google Images URL). See Fig C.
SCHEDULE ✅
Once the final plant list is established, we'll place plants on the plan or convert placeholder/concept plants into final plants. As a 'functional' deliverable, the schedule should communicate the plan symbol, species, container size, and other details that are needed to install the design.
The plants in this schedule are only the plants drawn on the plan, and are also a subset of the "company library".
This is currently achievable via "Plant Schedule" functionality in both Revit & CAD.
QUESTIONS
A) Big picture, is there a good workflow using LandFX that achieves our goals? Or are we better off using another piece of software to make the 'Project Directory'?
B) Am I making this harder than it needs to be, and is there a totally obvious solution that I'm missing?
C) Finer points: should I be doing something differently in any of the 'what I've tried' workflows in order to get better results?
Fig A: A portion of our current project directory. The paragraph-style formatting has an advantage over column-formatting because not all plants have the same attributes, For example, not all plants need a column for toxicity. Note: definitely has some room for improvement re: layout/graphic design!
Fig B: CAD results
Fig C: Revit results
'reached attachment limit', will try to attach to subsequent post
I apologize for the length of this question, but I've been unable to find the answer elsewhere, so here goes. 🤓
I'm working to improve our planting workflows and I'm looking for advice on how LandFX for Revit & Civil/AutoCAD can (and can't) help us. I've included ✅ emojis next to items that I believe LandFX is fully capable of delivering, and ❓ next to items that I'm unsure of.
Here's what I'm trying to achieve:
COMPANY LIBRARY ✅
Central library of company-approved plants that can be used in projects.
Currently achievable by maintaining a central LandFX "Template" project.
PROJECT DIRECTORY / PALETTE ❓
This is a 'pretty' deliverable that communicates plant attributes that clients care about (species and cultivar, appearance (via 1 or 2 photos), form, culture, special features, toxicity, wildlife value, bloom color & season, etc) in an attractive format that helps clients determine what plants they'd like to use in their landscape.
The plants in this directory are a subset of the "company library". If we create a plant or update an existing plant for this project, we want to 'push' it to the company library for use on future projects. Nice to have: existing projects that are using those projects would pull the updates, keeping everything in sync.
Our current method is to use InDesign to create this deliverable. It results in but it's a very manual & tedious process and is getting less and less viable as our company library expands. See Fig A.
What I've tried:
1) CAD > Create plants then create schedule: F/X Planting tab > Plant Schedule > check 'Entire Palette' > use the 'Plant Data' button to include attributes like 'Mature Width', 'Mature Height', 'Plant Traits' > check the 'Photo' boxes. Result: A schedule with a lot of the info we want, but enormous in dimensions and low in info density (aka, way too big, too much whitespace...just hard to read). See Fig B.
2) Revit: `Planting F/X tab > Plant Schedule > Properties Palette > Fields > add all 'LAFX' parameters including 'LAFX Plant Photo'.` Result: None of the detailed info available in CAD comes through and the `LAFX Plant Photo` parameter renders as a URL, even if it was a LandFX AWS URL (as opposed to a Google Images URL). See Fig C.
SCHEDULE ✅
Once the final plant list is established, we'll place plants on the plan or convert placeholder/concept plants into final plants. As a 'functional' deliverable, the schedule should communicate the plan symbol, species, container size, and other details that are needed to install the design.
The plants in this schedule are only the plants drawn on the plan, and are also a subset of the "company library".
This is currently achievable via "Plant Schedule" functionality in both Revit & CAD.
QUESTIONS
A) Big picture, is there a good workflow using LandFX that achieves our goals? Or are we better off using another piece of software to make the 'Project Directory'?
B) Am I making this harder than it needs to be, and is there a totally obvious solution that I'm missing?
C) Finer points: should I be doing something differently in any of the 'what I've tried' workflows in order to get better results?
Fig A: A portion of our current project directory. The paragraph-style formatting has an advantage over column-formatting because not all plants have the same attributes, For example, not all plants need a column for toxicity. Note: definitely has some room for improvement re: layout/graphic design!
Fig B: CAD results
Fig C: Revit results
'reached attachment limit', will try to attach to subsequent post